In one film, Cruise’s super-spy Ethan Hunt even gets married, but that plot barely factors into the two Missions that follow.
The more complex and convoluted the backstory, the bigger the barrier to entry for casual fans.
I want the real impossible mission to be trying to figure out how all the characters are secretly related.
Fingers crossed that Mission: Impossible 7 features the return of Jeremy Renner, at which point it’s revealed he’s actually the son of Jon Voight’s Jim Phelps.